Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Iraq’s Central Front Attacks Upon Baghdad Continue While ISIS Fights In Rest Of Country

Most of the attention on Iraq’s security situation right now
is focused upon the fighting in Salahaddin, Anbar and Ninewa, and to a lesser
extent Diyala and Kirkuk. Little has been said about the continued attacks upon
Baghdad province. The ultimate goal of the insurgency is to reach the capital
and overthrow the government. Right now the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIS) is the only group that has the capability to hit the central
governorate. It has kept up a steady dose of shootings and bombings there
showing that its networks continue to operate in Baghdad despite its commitments
to other parts of the country.

Despite heavy fighting across central Iraq the Islamic State
has been able to maintain its operating in Baghdad province. On June 6 ISIS and
other insurgent groups launched its assault upon Mosul. After the fall of that
city the militants charged across half of Salahaddin and western Kirkuk. Since
then it has made more advances in Anbar and across western Ninewa, along with
continued fighting in Diyala and northern Babil. None of that has stopped
ISIS’s operations in Baghdad. The average number of attacks per day has not
changed from the beginning of the year to June, and casualties are some of the
highest seen so far this year. From June 1-21 there were an average of 7.5
attacks per day reported in the press, which compared to February’s 7.2,
March’s 7.5, April’s 7.1, and May’s 7.8. The average number of dead was at 15.2
so far in June, which is the third highest of the year only behind May’s 15.9
and January’s 17.9. Likewise there have been 36.7 wounded per day in the first
three weeks of June with only January’s 38.2 being higher. This has been caused
by a steady stream of shootings, 2.3 per day, and bombings, 4.8 per day.
Surprisingly these casualties have not ben the result of car bombs. There have
been the same average number of those types of attacks at 0.8 in April, 0.9 in
May, and 0.8 in June, but they have not been launched in the consistent waves
as seen in previous periods. From June 1-23 vehicle born IEDs (VBIEDs) have
been spread out with June 7 the only exception when there were 6 across Baghdad
resulting in 23 killed and 91 injured. Otherwise there has only been one or two
about every other day during the month. In previous months there were one to
two days off and then a couple days of 1-3 car bombs followed by a huge number
on one or two days before ramping down and repeating the pattern. The series of
VBIEDs is the only change in violence in Baghdad governorate since fighting
started in other parts of Iraq.

Insurgents also continue to infiltrate into the capital
city. On June 16
for example Baghdad Operations Command (BOC) said that it had killed 56 ISIS
members and wounded another 21 as they were trying to infiltrate from Anbar in
the west, Babil in the south, and from the north as well. June 21
the Operations Command reported 10 dead militants who were trying to sneak into
the capital or plant improvised explosive devices. Then on June 23
the BOC told the press that another 12 insurgents lost their lives in various
outskirts of the capital province. ISIS’s charge from the north has been
blunted in central Salahaddin, but the Islamic State has been building up its
networks in the Baghdad Belts that surround the capital for months now. It is
currently trying to move more people into the capital from Anbar in the west,
Diyala in the east, and Babil in the south. Obviously the supply lines into and
throughout Baghdad continue to operate with no slackening due to the current
offensive as the security incident statistics show.

Baghdad and overthrowing the government is the goal of all
of Iraq’s insurgent groups. So far only the Islamic State of Iraq has been able
to carry out attacks in that province. It has an extensive network of safe
houses and supply lines going throughout the governorate and extending into the
surrounding areas that pass fighters, ammunition and explosives into the center
to carry out operations. These have shown no let up since June 4 when Mosul was
attacked. That means ISIS has maintained its manpower in the Baghdad Belts and
not diverted them to other areas to carry out fighting there. The only thing
that has seemingly decreased is the constant wave of car bombs, but the overall
number of them has remained steady. The sad fact is that violence in Baghdad
could actually get worse as the militants want to restart street fighting there
just as it did before to threaten the authorities. When that will happen is not
known but events have metastasized much quicker than anyone thought so gun
battles in the capital could be a reality sooner rather than later.

SOURCES

Buratha News, "Martyrdom and wounding 42 people, the
preliminary outcome of a suicide bombing in Bab al-Sheikh district in central
Baghdad," 6/15/14

- "Martyrdom and wounding seven people blown up in a car bomb
in Shaab district in northeastern Baghdad," 6/5/14

16 comments:

He's had the reigns of power and the Iraqi army and security forces at his disposal now for 8 consecutive years hasn't he?

So why aren't his equivalents of the Republican guards and Mukhabarat dealing with this security problem by grabbing these insurgents out of their beds, parading them in the streets and cutting their tongues out like the last tyrant solved the problem?

That's because he's hollowed out the ISF by placing his own loyalists in power rather than competent commanders to coup proof his government. He's turned the intelligence agencies against each other for the same purpose. Plus the ISF is corrupt just like most institutions in Iraq. And in fact the ISF is following the same kind of counterinsurgent tactics that not only the Americans practiced 2003-2007 but Saddam's forces did as well with raids, mass arrests, cordoning off neighborhoods for days, holding families hostages for people on wanted lists, abuse and torture in detention facilities, holding people without warrants indefinitely and incommunicado, etc. These are all reasons why the ISF has collapsed and that the operations they launch are ineffective.

“What the people in the Sunni community talk about everyday for the past few years is random arrests, torture, the fact that they have to pay to get their relatives to be released from prison, the fact that people are arrested without charge, they are never brought before a judge, etc. etc. Obviously this is not every person, but it happens to a lot of them. This is very well document. This is all they talk about. When you sit down and talk to these people on a day to day basis they don’t talk about the number of ambassadors they have, they don’t talk about Hashemi, they don’t talk about Mutlaq, and so on and so forth. That makes no difference to them whether Hashemi is in government or out of it. What these people want is to be treated equally by the security forces.”

After I hear today Maliki in tv my only hope for the future of a united Iraq is wait for next Friday to hear the representative of Sistani blaming directly to Maliki for the current mess in Iraq. Inshaaalaa!!!NAs Always thank you for your posts.

??? Give us a a credibility break. Zaid Al Ali holds the view that it is the United States that is entirely to blame for the situation in Iraq. He also seems to be of the view that sectarianism was unknown before the Gulf War and really only occurred after that because of the sanctions.

In this discussion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lbWPaQGuO8 at the 15 min to 23 min mark al Ali expounds at length and at an excitable 100 miles per hour on the Iraqi marshlands in the context of climate change (!) and the Maliki govts incompetence in dealing with it is added to their sins. But Joel, he never mentions that marshlands were drained by Saddam or why they were still less does mention that the marshes were reflooded after the invasion. Or am I imagining it and it was all the fault of the US anyway?

Sigh. Serves to highlight my difficulty with the evil, brutal Maliki meme - where is the back up to these generalised, sweeping, allegations. Al Ali who has a pronounced bias and political agenda makes a pronouncement - then Musings recycles it as fact. And thus does the US commentariat go around in its circle. You might as well quote Salah as an expert opinion :)

So here's your chance Joel - you must have documented evidence of atrocities many times here - please help me out with the links. Visser doesn't seem to have had any to hand.

btw - I have gone through your 2012 archive today trying to find documentation of Maliki atrocities without any luck. So am not being lazy, just despairing.

Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights/United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, “Report on Human Rights in Iraq: January to June 2012,” October 2012Continuous reports of arbitrary arrests, lack of due process, abuse, torture, mistreatment, having to pay bribes to be released, etc.

Al-Hayat, “Reports of Torture, Rape Emerge From Iraqi Prisons,” 12/19/12Security committee issued report saying that there was torture and rape of women prisoners

Haidar, Rawa, “Iraqi Prisons: Inmates Say Their Mistreatment is ‘Organized’, Politicians Point at Exaggerated Claims,” Radio Free Iraq, 9/24/13Besides abuse and overcrowding reports of beatings, rapes, execution of prisoners after attacks by ISIS on prison facilities

Human Rights Watch, “Iraq: Abusive Commander Linked to Mosul Killings,” 6/11/13Called for government to investigate Federal Police killing 4 men and a 15-year old boy south of Mosul 5/3/13. This was done under Gen. Gharawi who Maliki later made Ninewa Operations Command and was in Mosul during its fall

Amnesty International, “The State of the World’s Human Rights, Amnesty International Report 2013,” May 2013Lack of due process and abuse and torture in Iraqi prisons

Shafaq News, “26 army officers split in Kirkuk and Dijla Operations Command declined the news,” 1/18/1326 soldiers in Hawija left their unit to protest abuses of citizens by their unit

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, “United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” United States Department of State, 2013Iraq suffers from chronic human rights abuses

Amnesty International, “New order, same abuses: Unlawful detentions and torture in Iraq,” September 2010April 2010 secret prison at Muthanna Airport in Baghdad found

Parker, Ned, “Secret prison revealed in Baghdad,” Los Angeles Times, 4/19/10More on secret prison at Muthanna Airport and other detention facilities run by forces directly under Maliki's command in Baghdad

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011,” State Department, 2012Secret Muthanna Airport prison was run by units under Maliki's command. Plus Feb 2011 another secret prison in Baghdad found

I have plenty more reports like these if you'd like me to find them in my notes

Finally on the left hand side of the blog under "Labels" is "torture." There you can find several of my articles detailing abuse and torture within the justice system and by the security forces. At the very top is a video of women who were beaten, abused, and tortured by the ISF.

Iraq History Timeline

About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com